After the life of a philosophical story teller

I was asked to write a short story on a specific subject, by an old mischievous friend, who  remains,  still to this day, a perennial magician of great elusiveness. Who reveals nothing, and only operates on the planes of appearance. His soul, known to be neither black nor white, shudders along the parameters of this breathing organism. But I hate arbitrating stories around themes! As a rule, I do not allow any morsel of matter to provoke my bones into the motions of a story teller.  Any story written thus far has only been, seemingly and spontaneously, electrified by a force that reveals itself through me. And I write!

Alas, for some time now, I have not been stirred in this way. The magician reminded me that this is so, when he beckoned me to  write on a subject nearly as tricky as he; the afterlife. So what does a philosopher have to say today about this great, unexplorable subject and for what purpose has he beckoned me to do so? I am led to believe this is to engage the modern reader with an ancient question in a philosophical way. Also, that this activity may give me a sense of purpose. And already here,  there is something being said about life, that it can be, perceived to be,  purposeful.  The next question might be that, if life may be purposeful, is the afterlife, perhaps, purposeless? To explore the afterlife, one must clearly know what life is, in order to distinguish when it has ended, and what occurs after. To begin,  one may ask, can life be without purpose, or is purpose a defining feature of life? If purpose is a defining feature of life, and there exists something without purpose, but perhaps once had it, we may say that this thing is of the afterlife.

Wherever people walk, when asked,  they may articulate why they are walking.  The answer usually consists of the connective 'to'. For example, ''I am walking 'to' the king's castle'', I am walking 'to' my impending doom'', or ''I am walking 'to' firm up my bipeds''.  You could argue that you are walking 'away' from something, or someone, but away necessitates 'to'. People orientate their actions towards some goal. But what about other life forms?

Are other life forms actions purposeful? Plants move! Indeed, they may wilt and wither under an immense temperature, or gracefully spiral towards a lustrous light.  Although we may not suspect that plants know  or can articulate sentences with the connective 'to' or 'away', it may be argued that plants nonetheless move with purpose. However, we can think of other peculiar instances.  Some people may walk, not because they aim 'to' or 'away'. Rather, they may say that they walk with no aim, to get nowhere. Here, it may look as though walking is aimless, yet the aim is within the activity itself, and  internal to it. Sometimes, one just wants 'to' walk.  We are here trying to understand what are the essential characteristics of life, so we may distinguish life from what is after it, and purpose appears to be, thus far, a defining feature.

Unfortunately, upon further reflection, I am getting into a pickle. If I am unsure what the essential defining characteristics of life are, how am I citing instances of life? There is a presupposition being made of what life already is, when I evoke such instances. I could go with such presuppositions, and take the modern scientific view of life. Something is living if it expresses a number of basic functions such as, breathing, excreting and moving.

What is 'afterlife' is then what becomes of that thing when it ceases to express said functions. That is on what is life,  but we can still ask further, what has that thing become when it no longer carries out those particular functions?

Alas, even if we admit of  some scientific assumptions on the defining features of life, there is another presupposition; namely that there exists a hard and fast distinction between life and the afterlife. After all, they may indeed not be opposites. Nor may the afterlife be the negation of life. So what if there isn't such a stark distinction?

What comes after life, could be a lot like living; with only one or few features to distinguish it from life.  Blurred lines, matrices and overlapping qualities and quantities  could interweave into something which is beyond life and the afterlife. Beyond the binaries of barbarian thought! A mystical force that spontaneously excites the nerves into the motions of a writer that keep us on the cusp of banality and creativity. 

Yet there are many maybes, speculations and postulates for an unenthused story teller. And one simply cannot begin to tell tales on such a tall subject without the invisible force that communicates through me, as I am stricken to the world of appearance, with the tricky magician who too is hiding within it. Oh when will I see again and be able to illuminate life?

Regrettably, this will be my first non-story, as I cannot summon the ability to write on what is such an impenetrable subject in a philosophical manner, unless I enter the realms of pure fancy and then I will be in the realm of  fiction. But that was never the aims of this philosopher.

One day, soon, I shall return to transcribing  The Philosophy Tales. 

Ellese Elliott

Life Instinct, Death Instinct - By St.Zagarus

Life Instinct, Death Instinct

            For myself, the life-instinct itself has died. It amazes me, from this cold vantage point, how readily people are able to accept 'life' as a given. Nourishment of the body, its pleasuring, the generic love of husband and wife -- how do they maintain it? I would always find myself asking this question. Then it became quite, quite obvious. They do not answer the question, 'Why this life-instinct', because they never got round to asking it.

Without taking the life-instinct for granted, there is the possibility of becoming absolutely still, of starvation, and thoughts of void. Nothingness. A wise man once told me, “Philosophy is something you do. Then you go home and have your dinner.”

Well if only it was that simple! Dinner itself is the life-instinct, something which should be so obvious, but humankind is not so simple. There are some people who starve themselves for emotional guilt, or to reach a certain artificial ideal. Yet not all such starvers are bound by emotion, for we need only look at religious fasters, or the scientist,who is too engaged in her discovery for anything other than caffeine (caffeine, caffeine!). This is philosophising beyond the basic needs. They have done their philosophy, but they are not having their dinner. Still, these people, with their grumbling bellies, are saying yes to life in other ways. The death-instinct is something different altogether. It is emptiness for its own sake.

When one struggles even to exist for a day, let alone longing for eternity, it becomes obvious that there is nothing substantial after this life; for dreams of after worlds and reincarnation are themselves just the continuation of the life-instinct. It is so obvious a child might see through it. So, why are we so carried along by the stream of life if it is fundamentally futile? Challenging the life-instinct can be quite a frightening prospect; like putting a violent political ideology in a newspaper. It will not convince everyone, but it will convince someone. To even ask the question might lead to the possibility of danger. It is better for people to remain ignorant of such decisions and let the basic drives of the human body answer the biggest philosophical questions for them.

A man once asked me, “Isn't the point of it all to bring new children into the world?” As if it were so obvious, like two and two making four. If we took him for his word, then the mere reproduction of humankind would itself complete us, and answer all of our questions. Yet it is ridiculous logic, for it never reaches any end point, nor does it provide us with any conclusions. The goal is to recreate, and the offspring’s goal to recreate, and so forth, and so forth, forever. No. Besides, human kind is never just satisfied with the physical creation of its offspring. There is always more to do, more to get, and more to be. This is, naturally, entirely self-deception, yet still it demonstrates how ludicrous it is to suggest that procreation alone is enough to provide anyone with purpose. The life-instinct does not take us anywhere except to the life-instinct.

The death-instinct can only be self-destructive. A murderer is not taken by the death-instinct in my definition. Murder is often premeditated, it encourages the body to be filled with emotion and energy, it has a purpose very much of this world. The murderer often intends to live after the act, and tries to conceal what they have done. In contrast, the death-instinct has no such purpose but death itself. Nothingness and slow decay is the death-instinct, and it is solitary, indifferent to the people around it, never causing harm to anything.

The conclusion of the death-instinct is always eternal nothingness. In this, it has more of a solid argument than life. Yet do not think that just because something has a more logical argument that this means anything at all. The argument is more valid because it reaches a conclusion, but whether or not it is acceptable or desirable is up to you to decide.

There is fundamentally nothing out there, we all know it, deep down inside. However, we cannot accept it. You might say, “There is no meaning except that which you create,” but this is greatly problematic. For it is advocating self-deception. Every idea needs a starting point. A humanist will want to end suffering, for instance. Yet in order to validate themselves, they must prove beyond doubt that there is a reason to sustain human life, and that it is of universal value. Human rights are the result. This document objectively declares the value of all human beings.

Yet if this document were objective (that is, true outside of the ideas of an individual’s perception) then all who looked upon it must be convinced of its validity. I am not convinced. It is a great idea, and better that it exists than it does not. This does not mean it is true. Something that feels good does not give it weight. To go back to our example, humanism is grounded in nothing. It begins with an assumption. This assumption cannot ever be challenged for there is nothing to weigh it against, except the bleakness of a meaningless cosmos. In this light, it can only be maintained by self-deception. It is a guess like any other.

To conclude, what would you be without other people around you? Strip the layers away from yourself, one after the other. The names of people and places, of gods and masters, of possessions and creations, dreams and purposes, and then of your own titles. You are left with nothing but raw experience, without a hole in which to bury your head and without the possibility of continued self-deceit. We need other people to actualise ourselves in this world of philosophical shadow (that is, philosophy which is useful, but ultimately meaningless).

Without the fleeting goals of our fleeting cultures, we are faced with the yes or no of pure human freedom - life, or death. This is what separates us from all of the other creatures. For whilst creatures may lie to one another (just think of the cuckoo, or the camouflaged snake, or the orchid mimicking a fly's mate), no creature has yet been able to lie to itself. And no creature doubts that it ought to continue existing, to strive and try as it might to maintain itself. Yet we humans -- at the pinnacle of reason and intellectual power, inheritors of such incredible bodies and capable of so much -- are prone to one fundamental weakness. Questioning whether we should even continue to exist at all; I wonder, is this the source of all our freedom, and all of our creative power?

This is the death-instinct itself, the temporary absence of any life-instinct.

By St.Zagarus

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Open Topic' Issue 43

Tough on war: soft on the causes of war - By Martin Prior

Tough on war: soft on the causes of war

To consider this issue in depth I would first like to consider the drawbacks of ‘Make Love not War.’  As argued in an Issue 20 (‘There is no purpose of life...and all people are equal in pursuing it’), we can see a circularity in the purpose of life: the purpose of life is love, and the purpose of love is life:

Can we not have a society that recognises and celebrates this circularity, and recognise that this is incompatible with war, in which the power to exploit is either asserted or defended?

But life can pour cold water on things: love does indeed lead to life, but in a society where economic hardship has been overcome, the population doubles every generation, so we hear.  Thus Britain became ‘great’ through exploiting India among others, then her population increased and many Brits went out to places like Australia, Canada, etc.  And some of course came back!

So by simply asserting love, we are indeed tough on wars, but without recognising factors such as population growth, we are being soft on the causes of war.

A very important illustration of tough on war but soft on the causes, is that of European integration.  The theory goes that with European integration, we come closer together and in effect ‘love each other’.  But to pursue this love, we pursue precisely the same financial orthodoxy that gave rise to Nazism and thence WWII.  Within the economic union, the rich get richer and the poor poorer: not just people within nations, but across nations.  Something has to snap.

By Martin Prior

The Philosophy Takeaway 'War' Issue 28